Glimpes
by Jessa L'Rynn
Summary: Snapshots from the world of Harry Potter, taken from the point of view of canon characters. Single moments, illuminated.
1. Chapter 1

Whenever we see Harry's world, we usually see it through his troubled eyes, through a glass, as the saying goes. Sometimes, a tiny scene will stand out, a single image of such perfect clarity that the reader is breathless with wonder. These scenes do not merely beg the question – they entreat, plead, and grovel for it, desperate to have an answer. _Glimpses_ is an attempt to answer those questions.

The scenes you will read are disjointed, based on snap-shot moments from the books, written in the first person point of view of another canon character. These moments freeze in the mind of the characters, some with breath-snatching beauty, some with heart-rending sorrow. They are moments that are, in a lot of ways, what we truly love about the Harry Potter universe, and these still points are meant as a tribute.

**I am not JK Rowling. I am a street busker, piping her music from a tarnished flute, borrowing her melody for a while to trace a little harmony around some of its measures for the joy of those who love the symphony she writes. **

If you wish to review, please do, as anyone loves to be appreciated. If you have scenes you want me to touch on, let me know and I will try. If you want to disagree with me, please feel free. We can discuss it at your leisure if you like. Anyone who wants a reply can leave their email address visible. Flames will be used for May Day.


	2. Ron, 1996

**Chapter 1: Ron, Summer of 1996**

* * *

Ron Weasley loves Hermione. Most of the time, it seems that he has always loved her. He distinctly remembers meeting her for the first time on the train when they were both eleven, but it always feels strange to him to realize this, because it seems to Ron that the length of time is much too short for a love that feels like this. Most of the time, he can almost believe that he has loved her all his life, that he lay in his cradle on that first March morning and became the love, then and there, of the bushy haired baby of a pair of Muggle dentists he has only one thing in common with.

There are some moments when he believes he loves her best. Hermione is a talented witch, a smart girl who learns everything she reads and reads everything she lays her hand to, and there was one moment when she was, to anyone's eyes, the most beautiful girl in the school. But the girl in those special moments is peripheral, aspects of the girl Ron really loves, and limited aspects at that.

Someday, when they are very old, if ever they live that long, Hermione will lean on his shoulder and look at him and whisper in that happy little voice of hers that she can't believe it turned out this way. And Ron will look down at her, frankly astonished, and see all the love that she has always held for him, right there in her eyes, and his heart will melt again, and he will fall in love with her yet one more time. And he will say that he can't imagine how it could have turned out any other way, and he will be telling the absolute truth.

Because to Ron, nothing has ever seemed so normal as loving Hermione. It seems sometimes as if she made a wish and he sprang from it. He drives her mad, every chance he gets, and there is very little about him that Hermione does not find a way to be dissatisfied with. But all the same, she is never so happy as when she is arguing with someone, and she is never so pleased with herself as she is when she is right, and Ron provides her ample opportunity to argue and be right every single day that he is with her.

They have been apart a grand total of six months since the day they met, and that is counting every day Hermione spent petrified in the hospital wing. That is counting every fight they had where they ignored each other successfully for more than 24 hours. That is also counting all the summer days they spent together waiting for Harry, worrying over Harry, hoping for the best for Harry.

Harry is the only person who has ever seen their love lying out in the open, with no disguises and no regrets. It is a nod to Harry's loveless upbringing that such moments do not embarrass him at all, since he doesn't recognize them as anything other than precious. He could tell them, of course, if they asked him (which they would be afraid to do) that it is the way they look, rather than anything they say or anything they do - it is the accidental intimacy of their unguarded expressions that could tell anyone who looked in their direction the whole story. Harry knows that he is privileged in this regard, and someday he will tell them, but not while they are still missing the moments more often than catching them.

But there is one moment Ron doesn't miss. Later on, he would look back on that moment, and wonder what he was thinking. In that single moment, he knows his love for her is eternal and irrevocable, and he knows he wants to love her like this, that he wants to spend every day with this. Later on, that adult knowledge will slip away and he will make a childish mistake. But the knowledge will reassert itself, as it has always done, since the moment she first gave herself a cat's tail, or perhaps since she forgot about a spell for fire, or maybe so far back as the troll. Maybe even the moment she rattled off her breathless autobiography at them on that first train ride. Maybe before that, maybe always. He belongs to her, and nothing changes that.

Hermione has just gotten her O.W.L. scores. The look on her face is precious - it's the expression of a first runner up, as ecstatic as one who is utterly crushed can possibly look. He sees this, and knows that, on anyone else, that look would mean only passing scores, but nothing special. On Hermione, he knows, because he knows her, that she has been terrified, since the moment she handed in her last exam, that knowing everything might somehow not be enough, that all her reading has somehow gone wrong, and she doesn't actually know anything at all. She has also been convinced, because there is still that part of her that _knows_ she knows everything, that all her exams should work out better than most people could even hope for.

So he takes her report from her, knowing what he will see, and upon finding it, he announces that she got the perfect Outstanding scores, except in one course - the one she always has problems in, because book knowledge must be backed by strength under pressure, which Hermione has, but not in that form. And he looks down at her, and she is looking up at him, begging him to understand, and he does understand, and what he says lets her know that she is just being silly - that he is very proud, that no one could possibly have expected less - or achieved more - than what she has done. Her eyes are wide and deep and vulnerable, and Harry is laughing because he knows her and knows what this has meant to her. But what Ron is doing is seeing Hermione - and only Hermione - in one of her "true self" moments, without her masks, without any attempts to disguise, and he is loving her, as he has perhaps always done.

But it is in moments like this that he loves her best.


	3. Remus, 1995

**Chapter 2: Remus, Summer of 1995**

* * *

"What are you doing, Remus?" Sirius asks, sounding quite confused as Remus buries his head in his hands and groans in frustration.

"I don't believe I just said that," Remus says, angrily, and picks up his mug and flings it at the wall.

It shatters into about four thousand pieces and Sirius, who has more often than not lately been the one to break things rather than fix them, jumps up and mutters a quiet _reparo_ anyway. The mug jumps, whole, into the convict's hands and he sets it again on the table, but well out of Remus's reach this time, for which Remus is quietly grateful.

"Which bit?" Sirius asks finally, when Remus's silence has stretched too long - not long at all for Sirius, but much longer than it would have been when they were young. There is a wariness in his tone, an unspoken accusation, as though he expects Remus to berate him for the things he said as well. But Remus is not that stupid, not at the moment, and is feeling too guilty for his own daft words to complain about anything Sirius might or might not have said and whether it could have made matters worse.

"It wasn't really a lie, was it?" Remus asks, hopelessly, feeling drained and bewildered and self-conscious. "I had to say it didn't I?"

"You've told no lies that I know of," Sirius agreed. "Except to Tonks, and I gather that's not what you're on about?"

"No."

They sit in silence a while longer, and Remus knows Sirius is quietly seething - something that a young Sirius would never have done. Rather, he would have raged and stormed and that is what Remus would like to do now. But he doesn't want to set Sirius off. And he doesn't want to set himself off. And he really, really doesn't want to set off either of the two harridans. That isn't how he thinks of one of them most days, but tonight he could have cheerfully stuffed them both into a closet together and let them fight it out to see who could be the most furious female creature in this filthy mad house.

She is wrong, and he knows it, though he is hard put to decide what she is most wrong about. She loves, and she gives, and she cares, and none of those things is wrong or even slightly bad. But the way she does it, the way she continues to do it... It has driven Sirius to the brink of fury, and it has driven Remus himself into a hot-headed and uncharacteristically thick statement that even now makes him want to pound his head into the table until he can't hear his own voice making rash proclamations in his head.

"Harry," he confesses finally, after what has started to feel like an interrogation, though Sirius has remained silent and virtually motionless throughout.

Sirius glares at him. But all he says is, "And?" A simple word and it is enough to drive Remus the rest of the way into a silent rage. He stands and snatches up the mug, hurtling it at the wall again, following it with the other two mugs on the table and then, just to punctuate his sheer anguish, he hurls his own chair at the wall and watches with some satisfaction as it explodes into matchsticks.

"She's going to blame me for that," Sirius says. Unsaid, he leaves the very true statement that she somehow blames him for everything.

His anger spent, Remus deflates and sinks wearily onto the nearest chair, one he didn't hurtle into the wall. "I'll fix it," he says, but only drops his head onto the table, exhausted, and wishing that he had never opened his mouth.

He can feel Sirius watching him, feel the hollow, burning eyes staring into the back of his head, but he just sits there, drowning in the wave of self-revulsion. This goes on for some time, and he only looks up when he hears the sound of a glass being clicked onto the table right in front of him. He looks up warily and finds Sirius pouring too much smoky amber liquid into the fine lead crystal.

"Drink this," Sirius orders, "and then tell me what the hell is wrong with telling Harry this?"

Remus reaches for the glass, takes a swallow, and almost chokes on it as he realizes that Sirius thinks he's angry about the wrong thing. He sputters and coughs but manages to choke out a wheezy, "It's not that," between gasps. He wipes the tears from his suddenly streaming eyes and draws a careful breath. It doesn't kill him, so he tosses back the liquor, wishing Snape had poisoned it while the greasy bastard was here. No such luck, though. You just can't count on the merciless sod for anything.

"Harry has to know!" Sirius grinds out, and then drinks straight from the bottle, pointedly ignoring the spots of spittle and liquor Remus coughed onto the table. Remus winces, but supposes it could be worse. The alcohol will probably kill any germs and probably eat a hole in the finish, too.

"I agree," he admits finally. "Not everything, though," he allows, at which Sirius shakes his head.

"He's not like James, Remus," Sirius declares fiercely. Remus isn't startled by this explanation, but he wishes to God and Merlin that _she_ could have heard that. "James may not have liked it, but he did understand there were things going on he didn't know about." Sirius shakes his head again, as though by shaking it he can get the facts to go away. It apparently does no good, as he downs another gulp and puts the bottle on the table. "He knew that not everything was his problem. Harry doesn't have that luxury."

How true that is, and how absolutely horrific. Not that Sirius ever thinks clearly where Harry is concerned, because he loves the boy, but every once in awhile, he is clear-eyed and correct simply because he has not known him for so long. Every once in awhile, the fact that these others have loved the actual boy while Sirius loved only the vague memory of an infant long grown comes through in the fact that while the others would spare him pain and the truth with it, Sirius would gift him both pain and truth and love him all the while to try to bring him through it. It is something that Remus both despises and admires in the shattered Animagus.

"I know that, Padfoot, I know it." He jumps to his feet again and starts pacing between the swinging door and the rubble on the floor, waving his arms frantically to make his point. "Merlin singing Dumbledore's ditties, do you think I can't understand why you want him to know? But you have to see it our way..." He stops, realizes he's trying to defend himself, which is the last thing he wants to do, and he knows he's wrong, anyway. He sinks, again, back into the chair. "Nevermind, Sirius. Just... forget it."

"What the hell is going on in your fuzzy head, Remus!" Sirius says it like a question, but it is a demand, an insistent plea. He is grasping the bottle in his hand, almost too tightly, and brandishing it in Remus's direction, though not quite at an angle that will cause the alcohol to pour out. Remus is not surprised at this - Sirius has never been one to waste good booze.

"You heard what I said to him, right?"

"Yeah," Sirius admits. "Every word of it. What's wrong, didn't get the right inflection?" His tone is lightly mocking, reminding Remus so much of the boy he grew up with that only his eyes remind him that the child has been blasted away by despair.

"No, I said something completely..." He frowns. What was wrong with the sentence anyway? He pauses in surprise a moment, then looks up at Sirius with a weak grin. "Something completely arrogant and... Prongs-like."

"Oh, that." Sirius grins back at him. "You mean that pompous-ass declaration about danger?"

Remus feels his cheeks color and snatches the bottle away from Sirius, pouring and downing a new glass in the hope of blaming his high color on the hooch.

"Didn't tell him that one of them was falling asleep in a popular corridor, did you? Or sitting in the wrong stinking bushes and ending up with thorns in your arse? Or getting told off by Alastor Moody for wearing the wrong colored shirt on a Thursday? Or having _her_ strip the hide off of you because some foul thing or other has taken up residence some place you can't bloody help?"

Remus knows his cheeks are quite red, now, and actually drinks from the bottle this time, just to hide his face from view. "I can't believe I said it, Sirius. I told a boy who's confounded the most powerful dark wizard ever, _four times_ that he couldn't understand the dangers. I claimed in my arrogance that I had a better idea of the situation than a girl who manages to piece together from a half-dozen tiny clues the whole facts of any given disaster. I told the boy who stood on a broken leg between his best friend and a convicted murderer that there were terrible things out there. As if they care, Sirius, as if that will stop them. _Voldemort_ himself can't take them; I've got no idea why I suddenly thought a werewolf and a mad woman were any match for them."

"Moony," Sirius says then, in the same calming, soothing tones he always uses on the mornings after Remus's transformations, "stop." He puts both hands on Remus's shoulders, a strangely familiar gesture that makes the werewolf feel like a fifteen year old boy again. "Don't do this," Sirius adds, someone else's line from by-gone days, and it's almost like Sirius is two people at once, one that was always a gentle, giving friend, and one that grew up to become one. The alcohol is starting to play funny in Remus's head and for a split second, the lights superimpose James's youthful face on Sirius's haggard one. Remus wants to cry out in shock and fear but Sirius smiles one of his Azkaban-rarified smiles and the illusion is broken.

"The truth," Sirius quotes, "is a beautiful and terrible thing." He frowns then, and shakes his head. "But I don't think it's a complete lie to say things you wish were true. Especially not when you wish them with all your heart."

Remus relaxes then, and smiles, the guilt easing up at last. "It would be nice, wouldn't it," he says softly. "If it were true, that they have no idea what the dangers are, that the world had never let so much dark horror be visited on children?"

"Maybe," says Sirius. "But maybe they're stronger than we are and that's why they refuse it, too. Go on upstairs, Moony, I'll clean up in here and I think Tonks probably passed out in your bed again."

Remus frowns then and another guilt settles on him. Another lie, this one deliberate.

Sirius shakes his head at him again, and pulls out his wand. "Don't think about it, now, Moony. Everything is going to be fine, you're going to live happily ever after and have pretty little multi-colored werewolf babies."

And Remus heads for the stairs, thinking Sirius is probably very, very wrong, but it is nice to know that even after all of this, his last best friend wishes him such happiness, and that he wishes it with all his heart.


	4. Ginny, 1997

**Chapter 3: Ginny, End of School, 1997**

* * *

Anyone who knows about it and thinks about it, any one at all, will ask her why she nodded, why she let him walk away and why, why in the name of Merlin did she let him do that to her. And she will smile that wistful half-smile that will become her _only_ smile in the days ahead and she will say, "For the same reasons he did."

They will walk away, shaking their heads, or grumbling under their breath, perhaps, that she has finally lost it, that the situation has finally become too much for her, that she's gone completely round the twist. And perhaps they will try to fix things, mentioning Snape, and Malfoy, and the other cold realities of the situation.

But she knows the true reality, just as she knows the boy who has walked away from her a man too old for his years. She has known this was coming for days, for weeks, perhaps forever. She has felt it in her heart, like a burning ache, and has prepared herself carefully for what he would say, for what she must say in return. He would not let her finish, and she knew this before hand, so maybe she will have to corner him later, or maybe she will leave the rest unsaid until it's over. She doesn't know that part, but she does know that she did the right thing - no tears, no regrets. They are all his, the regrets, and she knows she will have them too, but not like his, not when he is wearing old words on his heart, not when he might as well carry about a banner that says "We who are about to die salute you."

He has been scarred for life, in more ways than just the obvious one, in more ways than most people could withstand. His life was set on a road to hell before he was born - no, he never actually confessed this to her, but they have been talking without words for weeks, and she _knows_. Every single moment of pleasure he has ever experienced has been bought for him at such a dear price to someone. It is a price he will not let her pay.

This, above all things, lets her know the truth of what he will not say. She is no stained-glass fairy-tale heroine, raised above the world and immured in an innocent's prison. She has been set aside for another reason - not enthroned with purple cushions, not locked in a vault to be taken out and admired when it is safe to do so. She has been castled rather, the valued piece guarded carefully, but not blocked. The piece that must not be lost or else the game is over.

Even a year ago, she would have wondered if her interpretation of events were not wishful thinking. When only Dumbledore could tear him away from the body of a lost friend, when only Dumbledore could stand in the center of his storm, she would not have thought so much of herself, or even so much of him.

But the world has fallen into darkness since then, and she can see thestrals, and has seen the most precious people torn down by the predators of the night. She has inadvertently stepped into the shoes of great men, and come away a woman on fire.

He has gone and will go to war, a war for his soul as much as for all their lives. She has her duty, and that duty must include being strong. She cannot rage and weep at what has been taken from her because so much more, and the same besides, has been taken from him. The child who could not speak to him has been burned away and now she must glow as a hearth fire and a candle in the window. She will have so much to do, to prepare, to contribute. She will have such responsibilities that the red of her locks may be tarnished with silver before they are all done. But she will do them, because he will require them, whether he knows it or not, and she has become his anchor to a world that will be waiting for him when all this is said and done.

She used to think that one day she would sacrifice herself for him, but she never imagined that she would have such a choice: to be a frightened, angry, heart-broken little girl, or to sacrifice that little girl to the wildest chance that he will not merely survive, but live.

And this great man whom they have come together to mourn and to celebrate, whose wisdom reaches out even from his marble tomb to touch all their lives, did say that there would come a time to each of them when they must choose whether to do what was right or what was easy.

So she makes her choice and stands beside him, stands beside him even when he has already walked away, swept off by waves of sorrow. She will be there for him, be his last window into the real world that he is fighting so hard to save. She will fight, too, in her hidden and willful way, and she will never give up. He will see no accusation in her eyes when he looks at her, only joy that she is looking back at him, alive and brave, and oh so noble.

And some time, maybe tomorrow afternoon, when her mother asks her tearfully where her little girl has gone, when her mother demands to know why she has become this ash-risen creature of such frightening, secret joy, she will not be swayed. She will know that she is cherished, precious enough to be moved into the delicate position between protected and protecting. She will know that she is loved.

And she will smile that wistful half-smile that will become her only smile in days to come, and she will say, "Stupid, noble reasons."


	5. Hermione, 1992, Part 1

_This chapter is the result of a special request. It took a lot to find just the right scene. This was one of my two favorites. In the end, I chose this one, because it gave me not one, but two different pictures to look at._

* * *

Hermione, June 1992 - Part 1 - About a Trio

Hermione is gasping desperately for air, listening with relief to the melancholy strains of an enchanted harp behind the door. It was conjured only moments before and has been playing an incessant, mournful dirge ever since, a water-pure lament in the crystalline registers of a sorrow too deep for tears. Ron is muttering at her side, dazed and swaying, almost in perfect time to the music. She is holding him up with a stern grip on his arm, just as he is supporting her with the very last of his strength. She knows somehow, with a knowledge that transcends truth, that this, figuratively at least, is where they will stand, time and time again, waiting out the very last of it, for the rest of their lives. "Til death do us part," she murmurs. Ron looks at her sharply, and nods in understanding, and it is only then that she realizes she has spoken her thoughts aloud.

His blue eyes meander out of focus again, and he lists sharply, but she shakes him and he summons another modicum of strength from that seemingly bottomless well that is his very soul. She will never have to falter, at least, even though she may fear and may stumble, for this boy at her side is her Rock, and always will be, and there is nothing that can happen to two people that will ever change the fact.

They have succeeded in their mission, and have nothing else left to them but hope, and waiting. Hermione knows they had better get very good at waiting because if they are going to be friends with Harry Potter (another fact that may as well be cardinal law), this is where they will always be at the end of the adventure, waiting in desperate fear, in exhaustion that physically bruises, for word on what has become of Harry. He is the central fact of their lives, and will be for years to come, even if it all burns down tonight, or some night many years from now, and they have nothing left to hold onto but each other and the elegiac tones of a wizard's requiem.

There is hope in the music, too; it is not a requiem yet. There's a descant underlying the melody, a song that Hermione's musical ear will remember all her life as "Harry's Theme". It sounds like phoenix song, like her father's voice on a stormy night, like Ron laughing, like Hagrid's grin, like Dumbledore's aimless humming, like McGonagall's secret smile, like _Harry._ He is a great wizard, she knows this, not anymore because she has read all about him, but now because she has read _him_. She has studied him and Ron both, and as they grow together she will study them every day of their lives, and she will learn them as well as any book, because they are more precious to her than _any_ book.

She knows that she will never understand him. Ron, she understands, in her way. Ron is a mere mortal, like herself. A great mortal, to be sure, but human, with frailties and weaknesses, and normal descents into childishness. Not Harry, though. Everything he does, even when he doesn't realize it -_ especially_ when he doesn't realize it - is larger than life. He is braver than all the brave people in the world, walking willingly into the unknown on the off chance that he is the only one who can stop the nightmares. He is wiser than wise men, knowing without any doubt the difference between right and wrong and understanding what he has to do to defend the right. Even now, when he is so very young, he is powerful beyond the mere meaning of the word. If he has to be the lone candle in the darkness, then by whatever gods there might be that defend young wizards too tough to know when to quit, he is going to stand there and _be_ that light, with the very last breath in him, though it cost him every single pitiful thing he might have. Even if he is the only flame on a moonless night with cloud cover that survives the world, there will still be warmth in his small corner.

She tried to tell him that, down there in the darkness, where the unnatural fire from a Dark Wizard's trap held them, however briefly, at bay. He trusted her strength, trusted her with his life, because that was the right thing to do, just as he had trusted Ron with all their lives in the earlier trap that was Ron's particular forte. He gave her orders, a leader as born to it as he is a Seeker born to the broomstick. She followed them at the last, a loyal soldier in his tiny army, though she is still a child herself, and taking orders from another child ought to seem wrong. But she is his lieutenant, and Ron his general, and that is what they will do forever, be Harry's right and left hands until he doesn't need them anymore and they will still have each other.

They are alone now, and they have no idea what is happening below, what Harry has found to further stop him, if he has caught Snape, if he has found the Stone. They are almost - almost - too tired to care. But they do care, or they wouldn't be standing here.

Dumbledore had found them, as they charged madly across the Entrance Hall, heading for the owlry without any other thought in their heads, though Ron was scarcely conscious and she herself had nearly lost her arm as they shot out past the slumbering monster in the next room. As he barreled toward them with a white blur hovering at one shoulder, a red and gold blur at the other, it was hard to tell whether he nearly bowled them over, or whether they nearly flattened him. Hermione was sobbing in relief as she saw him, but all he said was "Harry's gone after him, hasn't he?" and tore off to the third floor corridor. She looked at Ron, and he looked at her, and they watched the most powerful wizard of their time race up the stairs as if he had dropped nearly a hundred and twenty-five years on his way up to the castle. The encouraging cry of Hedwig lingered behind him as she flew away, the phoenix's song had a strangely somnolent effect as it echoed down the castle toward them.

"So that's good then," Ron had said.

"Hospital wing, I think," Hermione had replied, staring at her bloody shoe with some surprise.

"No chance," Ron had snapped firmly, obviously prepared to fight her to the death on that point. It was strangely gratifying that he would take the time to convince her rather than go without her. She had nodded. So they had poured whatever they had left in them into one last trip up the stairs and that had gotten them where they are now. There are new locks on the doors, funny silver ones. Hermione had tried when they first got here, everything she could think of to get through them. There had been something funny about the Alohomora charm earlier, but these are even odder, and there is no getting around them.

She is counting her heartbeats more than the minutes, and listening to the measured strains of the magic harp. Some how, she knows that it is Dumbledore's own emotion controlling it, and waits with nervous anxiety for the descant to fade and the requiem to turn the chords to weeping. She is unaware of anything else, so unaware that Ron has been wiping tears from her face with a pitiful handkerchief for several minutes before she even notices. She smiles weakly at him. "You have dirt on your nose, by the way," she whispers. "Did you know?"

Humorously, she imagines this, one of the first thing she ever said to him, will someday in the distant future be the last thing as well. He is nodding wisely at her, as if she had pronounced holy writ, and she knows he's definitely got a concussion. "Can you hear it?" he asks. "It's weird to know what Dumbledore is thinking."

"True," she replies, and then her heart stops. The music has skipped a single beat, and the chords have turned to dust, to fury and sorrow, to blackest despair, and a loss that bleeds unseen.

She grabs Ron's hand in a desperate hold, a sob escaping as her heart shatters and scatters. She can tell from Ron's face, just before she crumbles into his shoulder, that he knows, truly and terribly, what this new sound must mean, and his heart is breaking, too. He holds her tightly, in a way that he has never done, and she hears him speaking. She curtails her sobs, so she can hear the bitter cursing, just in case she needs to join in.

Instead, what she hears sets her on fire. "Don't give up. Even now, we can't give up. We have to believe, even if nobody else can, we have to, even if Dumbledore can't, we have to believe. We can't give up." He is repeating himself like a litany, like a prayer, a spell of the most ancient kind, the whispers of eldritch magic chanted in the old groves and high places. She nods and feels it - he believes it with a ferocity so intense that it is almost tangible.

And he is right. The chords modulate again, starkly, breathlessly, and again there is silence. Then, the harp explodes into joyous triumph, the sound of the morning coming up the day magic was born. They look at each other and grin, briefly, then collapse, spent, against the door.


	6. Hermione, 1992, Part 2

_I wondered and I wondered. And this is what came out._

* * *

Hermione, 1992 – Part 2 - About a Truth

The sound of phoenix song wakes them, joining the chords of the harp, entwined with it, overshadowing, overpowering it, until the harp goes silent and the bird carols on alone, with all the voices of music in all the world. There are people coming down the corridors - McGonagall and, shockingly, Snape. They stare at him, and he glares at them in loathing, and winces at the sound of the triumphal overture, even as the look on McGonagall's face turns from vague worry to transcendent joy. She reaches out and pulls them away from the door, just in time, for it flies open behind them, and Dumbledore emerges from within, a small burden cradled tenderly in his arms.

The first thing Hermione thinks of is an old stained-glass window in a church. There they stand, the perfect image of it, a crushed, ancient Abraham holding his trusting, only son to be sacrificed for reasons even his many years can scarcely comprehend. She had thought as a girl that the images were beautiful, but the reality before her has a glory and a nimbus around it that the painted halo could never have described. Quite apart from her own emotions, she senses wonderful and awful things from that statuesque pair in the doorway.

Hermione is shocked to see Harry lie so still. His face is gentle, and his fiery eyes are closed, but it is obvious that he is having an easy sleep now, his head resting against the Headmaster's shoulder, his limbs relaxed and free in the old man's kindly embrace. She wonders to look at him why she still can't shake the thought of him so titanic, for here he is, a light-weight burden in a frail old man's arms. Snape murmurs something and she turns to see he has conjured a stretcher, looking with absolutely pitiless hatred at the boy who had suffered so to come to this place. The Potions Master catches her glance and turns away, moderating his expression as he does this, to push his stretcher towards Dumbledore, without a word.

"I'll carry him, Severus," he says. "This is all my fault," he adds, obviously a reply to the look of shock on all their faces. "Severus, summon the staff. Minerva, I have another job for you."

They both nod, and step out of range of the students. Snape stalks off down the hallway and McGonagall accepts a small package from him, then strides purposefully away. "Come, you two," Dumbledore says. "Can Mr. Weasley walk?'

"'Course," says Ron, vaguely. "Forever and ever if Harry's ok."

Hermione smiles at him gently and takes his arm to support him as best she can. As they make their way to the Hospital Wing, she is watching Dumbledore as he whispers soothingly to the boy in his arms, and hums a quiet refrain or two when he stops to rest. He never seems to think to put Harry down, never seems to want to relinquish his delicate student, even to the care of a stretcher Hermione is sure he could conjure with a word and no wand.

Even as they arrive to the business-like shock of Madame Pomphrey's bustling care, she watches. Ron has been ushered to a bed, and Madame Pomphrey is giving him hospital clothes to change into. She, herself, will need to be seen to, because that blood on her shoe has to have come from somewhere. Ron pulls the curtain reluctantly, and Hermione goes to sit on a bed that will be between them, never taking her eyes from Harry's face or Dumbledore's curious expression.

There is something in his face that tells Hermione more than she thinks she has ever known, more than she thinks she _should_ know. The old man is lowering the boy tenderly to the mattress, soothing him even now with unheard whispers. She has no idea what he is saying, but she knows it isn't truly the words that matter. She knows, beyond any doubt, that this is not the first, nor even the second, time this man has held this child, that he may have been there all of Harry's life, and that it is still only Harry's unconscious state that makes him willing to take such a liberty now. His eyes are twinkling, but very much over-bright, unshed tears standing in them for all the world to see.

Madame Pomphrey hands him clothes without a word, refusing even to look at his face, as if she knows the dreadful sorrow and fierce joy she will see there, and believes it will burn her. She closes the curtain around them, and Hermione can hear Dumbledore talking quietly to him, as her mother used to do to her in those days when she would still fall asleep in her clothes.

Hermione pulls her own curtain closed and changes, listening as Dumbledore tells the Matron he will stay with the boy, in a tone that brooks no defiance, and suggests that he means more than just now.

As Madame Pomphrey hands her a flask of potion, they look at each other, and Hermione sees her own expression of wonder and worry echoed in the older witch's eyes. She downs the potion without another thought and lies down, waiting for it to take her.

As her eyes close, she can hear Madame Pomphrey talking quietly to a vague Ron. She thinks for a few moments, unable to shake the hopeful, dreadful feeling from her mind. She knows she has seen something no one else ever gets to do, something far beyond merely the admiration of a mentor for a star-pupil. She has seen the greatest wizard of the age cradling his successor in his arms, fear and triumph and dreadful regret all haunting his lined face as he looks with love and shame on the life he must burden so unbearably. She has seen a great man brought to awe by the miracle of a child, and seen the fathomless love of a titanic man for the precious son of his old age.


	7. Sirius, 1994

_This is one I've been dying to write, and also was specially requested. I hope you enjoy it. It probably won't be the last Glimpse, I don't think. I'm also planning on going on another tangent – a companion tangent if you will – called "Mirages" – of images that might be there, and might not._

* * *

Sirius, 1994

Sirius Black has been intimate with fear all his life. It is his most faithful companion, a constant, nagging ache that has always been with him, hovering, he realizes with irony, rather like the Dementors, over his life, his heart, his soul. He wondered one particularly lucid evening, some time very long ago, if it wasn't this that kept him sane - not that he is innocent, but that he is used to it.

He was afraid of his mother, a reaction that disturbed him to the core on several very fundamental levels. He was afraid of other wizards, afraid of Slytherin, afraid of Gryffindor, afraid of Dumbledore, afraid of the boys who eventually became his friends. But they _did_ become his friends, and then he became afraid _for_ them, and that was his undoing.

Not that he hadn't always seen it coming.

He sees it coming, now, too. He was dragged into this office, and told to wait, unbound and allowed to pace the strong hold of a tiny duelist whose wand frightened full Death Eaters. It is as though they are taunting him. And Dumbledore has been and gone, and taken the truth with him, but Sirius looked into those luminescent blue eyes and has seen no reason to hope that this is not where he will end. He keeps hoping that his eyes will find something he can use, not to escape, but to open a vein at least. He is not afraid of death - never has been, though he has never understood that peculiar fact about himself. Maybe Dumbledore can force them to show him that much mercy.

If not, maybe he can make Snape do him that one favor. A terrifying dash at the Minister, maybe a quick fight with the executioner while they're all dazed with the Dementors there, and he can take a shot at Snape. A single blow should be enough to set the mad man off, a single old taunt, perhaps, a reminder or two of everything that happened the last time they were here. He saw in Snape's black eyes before that the man has killed - killed and meant it - and the excuse that Snape must save the Minister and Dumbledore might not merely spare the Potions Master but also make him a hero. It's not like he'd have to use the killing curse, Sirius knows. There are more Dark curses in Snape's arsenal than there are Dark Arts Books in Hogwarts. It amuses him, in a bitter sort of way, to think that he could turn that much around, make Snape owe him something at the last. A last practical joke, in memory of the halls of Hogwarts that surround them. And, if it doesn't save Snape, well, so much the better, because Snape is one wizard who ought to disturb Voldemort himself. He will kill again, Sirius knows, and he doesn't like it.

Sirius sits calmly in the chair behind Flitwick's desk, thinking of the sheer volume of charms this small room contains. He remembers how many times they used to end up here, and how much fun he used to have ending up here. He doesn't like to think that he is about to end here, and he imagines it would have disturbed all of them.

Not many people know it, but Lily was his first friend at Hogwarts. She was the first person he ever met who didn't frighten him - probably because she was so confused and frightened herself. The Head Girl had helped them get onto the platform at the same time, as he had been deserted like a bad play in the doorway of the station (with, he remembered, the admonishment not to expect a rescue if the evil Muggles snatched him). She had been standing there, baffled, obviously Muggle-born, and had spotted him as a wizard in a heart beat. It was probably the hair.

He reacquainted himself with James later that same day, and met Remus some time before they reached the school. He remembered, even now, that Lily and James had despised each other on sight. It wasn't hatred. They reserved that for Snape, mainly because they caught him torturing Peter for information about them before the week was out. Now, Sirius wonders if that wasn't where it all started.

He remembers the first serious conversation they ever had. A month into school, an announcement was made that a certain Dark Wizard was threatening people and that anyone with information should contact a teacher immediately. They talked about what they knew. Or, rather, he remembered, James had talked. Sirius had muttered a few things about knowing where all the Dark Wizards could be found, and should he tell someone, and Remus had claimed utter ignorance of what Dark Magic even was. Sirius remembers that this conversation in itself was one of the reasons he had heard when trying to decide what side Moony was actually on. Peter had babbled incoherently. He remembers that, too. Peter was very good at that.

Lily, he remembers, had not been there for that conversation.

James had eventually proclaimed that he didn't care what happened, he wasn't going to become a Dark Wizard or listen to anything a Dark Wizard had to say. Remus had agreed with him with such sincerity shining in his blue eyes that Sirius has wondered for some time how he could have ever doubted the man. Peter had agreed as well. Some time in the night, Sirius had confessed the truth to them - that the Dark Wizards hated him personally because they lived in the same house as he had. And Remus had informed him that he lived at Hogwarts now, and James had said that it didn't matter who they were, only who _he_ was. And Peter had said he was tougher than them, anyway. That is the Peter he remembered - the one who always had an encouraging word for everyone.

He swore to himself then, and later to them, that he would die before he'd let the Dark Wizards hurt them, any of them. Even before he knew, really, what a Dark Wizard was capable of, he knew he would stand between them and his friends, even if it cost him his life.

It wasn't much later in the year that the vow included Lily as well. Their friendship had taken a certain turn for wary acceptance when the boys had played an outrageous prank on Moaning Myrtle, causing her to flood the second floor. McGonagall had been called in to give them a stern talking to, and Lily had heard, and she disapproved, but still liked them, at least a little, even if she wasn't sure she liked James.

Later that same year, they'd named themselves - or been given a name, anyway, when McGonagall chased them down the hall, calling them a band of wild marauders who were surely out to wreck the castle and bring it down on all their heads. Sirius remembers with a smile the look on her face when they were called into Dumbledore's office and referred to themselves as Marauders during the conversation. Idly, since he has nothing better to do, he wonders how Minerva is doing, and imagines she is probably fine, as long as Professor Dumbledore is there.

They were such innocents then, but Sirius knows that the vow he made that night has stayed with him.

So many years and so many changes went by, but he always knew, always, that he would eventually die for one or all of them. Then Harry came, and the vow became something more, something almost tangible, for the Marauders had a son, and they had to do everything they could to see their baby protected. Lily had laughingly quoted Muggle sayings at James while he looked on in awe and wonder while the Marauders met their Harry. The other Marauders, anyway. James had been there, the whole time and, due to circumstances beyond anyone's control (except Voldemort's, since he'd caused them) Sirius's were the first hands that had ever touched their child. They had, every one of them, constantly asked James "how is our baby?" whenever the child wasn't with him and they were.

Sirius sighs to himself and rises to pace some more, eyes ever watchful. The night they told him about the Fidelius Charm, he knew it had finally come, the time when he would do what he was born to do. It explained everything, he rather thought, about his animagus form, about his lack of fear, even about his name, after a star that symbolized death in ancient cultures. He is to become the first of them to die, to see to it that the others live.

He has always thought that this is the darkest irony of the whole thing. Peter, stupid, wretched, cowardly Peter, was actually completely safe with the plan they set up. For the love of James, and Lily, and Harry, for the love of Peter himself, he agreed to do what he has expected to do since he was eleven years old.

He knew then that the plan was fool proof. He knows now that _only_ the fool could have brought it down. It was simple, and brilliant. It was tantamount to suicide.

He would pretend to be the Secret Keeper, and go into hiding himself. If he survived, then all would be well. If he didn't, if he was caught, he planned that his last word, as they tortured him into madness would be "no." And they would kill him, having no further use for him with his mind so destroyed. They would believe the secret sealed then, made forever impenetrable by the Secret Keeper's death.

For Peter's sake, to save his life, Sirius was prepared to give up his own.

It was what he always planned to do, what he always expected of himself. He finds himself shocked to realize that, even now, with Dementors on the way to their grisly feast, that he is still certain that somehow, he will not die for their convenience, or Fudge's. He will not be lost, even though it is over. He has only one thing left to him in this life, and it is his, and no one can take that from him. He has prepared for this from the moment he realized the truth, and he won't end tonight.

Even as he thinks this, there is a tap at the glass. He knows what he will see - a way out - even before he turns his head. The miracle of Dumbledore, again.

They all have their roles to play in this war that is coming. Wormtail will keep his role as traitor, Lily and James as virtue and cause. Remus will be kindly friend and wise mentor. Harry will be what he was born to be - the one to save the world. And he, Sirius Black, will be the sacrifice.


	8. Snape, 1991

Snape, 1991

Severus looks up and sees the bright green eyes wandering over the dais. He catches them for a moment and, because he can, looks behind them. There is nothing in the boy's outer appearance but bewilderment and that all too cheerful grin the boy's father wore at all times.

There is nothing there to convince Severus that he is not looking into James Potter's mind behind Lily's eyes. Severus had once believed that he would see a true champion in the child, whether for Light or Dark becoming the only question. He had thought the boy might look like Lily, a bit, though that vile Potter hair would be there; it was inescapable. He never expected to see Potter's tiny clone before him, a vapid, green-eyed pseudo-twin, an image so perfect that Snape almost expects to see Sirius Black sitting next to him.

The boy's mind has never tasted power. Quirrell is chattering at him, but Snape waves him off, supremely unconcerned at the opinions of the latest wastrel usurping his position. There is nothing there in Potter's face or in his eyes, or even behind his eyes, inside him, to suggest that he is any different from the 60 other Gryffindors (mindless, heedless barbarians, the lot of them) who surround him.

Severus expected to find some titanic majesty there, some echoing suggestion of the greatness one could feel in the presence of Albus Dumbledore. Or he expected the cloying, sticky morass of evil there, sunk through to the very core with twisted, bitter plots, reminding him for the first time in a decade what it truly felt like to be in the presence of the Dark Lord.

Instead, there are the paltry thoughts of a child, an utterly powerless innocent, cheerily wondering if the new children will be his friends. Neither of the most powerful men Snape knows have friends. Well, Dumbledore has McGonagall, but he doubts he even wants to know what all that is about. He never wanted friends himself - if you didn't trust people, they couldn't betray you, or desert you or, Merlin help you, get you into trouble. But this boy is wondering how to be friends with the boy next to him, who to ask questions, where to get answers.

Snape is shocked at all this. He knows something of the future that awaits this boy, and he can't see how any of this is possible. But he can see, clearly and cleanly, the mirror image of James Potter, whom he hates with a passion that no amount of dying will stop.

He breaks the connection, and his eyes narrow. This vile, filthy, little spawn has been sent to them in lieu of a champion or destroyer and, without even acknowledging how he knows it, Snape is aware that he despises the child.

Then, something else happens. The boy becomes aware of his gaze, and suddenly they are not looking through or around each other, but at each other. The green eyes widened for a second, and Severus has a sudden, terrible epiphany.

He tears his eyes from the child's hated face and looks at Quirrell instead, his usual sneer in place. He is shaken to the foundations of his being, but he will never admit to it to anyone.

That boy is normal, Snape now knows, but it doesn't matter because there is something of the future in his eyes, even now, on his first night in the magic world.

Severus has seen many things in people's eyes over his life time. He has seen fear and hope and pain and sorrow, worry, truth, and shame. He has even seen death there before, but never like this. For this time, Severus has seen his own death, in someone else's eyes. He has never imagined such a thing could happen.

But he knows the truth now. Some day, maybe not too long from now, his death will come to him. Those bright green eyes will bring his death to him, and allow it to gaze upon him in his final moments.

Severus doesn't know whether to kill him or thank him.

With a sharp shake of his head, Snape turns away forever, and forgets the image entirely, until much later when it, and the eyes, come rushing back together.


End file.
